


Order/Request

by rnanqo



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Attempted Seduction, Canaan-compliant, Coronabeth Tridentarius' refusal to grow as a person, F/F, Kissing, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 11:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28544802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rnanqo/pseuds/rnanqo
Summary: Judith Deuteros and Coronabeth Tridentarius have not spoken in three years. At Canaan House, Corona is determined to change that.
Relationships: Judith Deuteros/Coronabeth Tridentarius
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	Order/Request

Judith Deuteros does not go anywhere without her cavalier—at least at first. 

Coronabeth first sees her at the initial meeting, when Teacher hands out keyrings. She’d planned for it, insisting that she and Ianthe dress well to make a good impression, and situating them squarely within the Second’s field of view. She gives Judith a little wave, a wave that says _We are acquaintances who last saw each other not long ago and have no particular interest in catching up right this moment but rest assured I notice you’re here!_

From Corona, this is half an apology. Judith looks away, as though she hasn’t even seen, and engages in a sudden, rather forced-looking conversation with her cavalier. 

But Corona is undaunted. She can play a long game, as long as Judith likes. 

The next time she sees Judith Deuteros is at breakfast. The Second stalk in precisely at 7 am and sit with military synchrony. Corona is midway through a piece of toast, but a princess can perform no matter what’s in her mouth. She flutters her fingers in a becoming little hello, a _Lovely to see you, acquaintance of whom I think fondly!_

Judith’s answering nod is of the _I do not remember who you are but am being polite_ variety. 

Progress. Corona bites into the plump red flesh of a strawberry, satisfied for now.

She has not told Ianthe what she’s doing, or Babs. Ianthe doesn’t even know what Corona said to Judith, those three years ago. Not that she’d care. 

The next time, Corona is in a dark temper over something Babs said to Ianthe, and when she passes the Second in that dizzying atrium, she is in no mood to be kind. “You could at least say hello to me,” she calls as they stride past her in practiced lockstep. “How awful it must be, Captain Deuteros, to be so perfect and so stoic all the time!”

Judith stops, then. Whirls around. Regards Corona with Cohort coldness. “Hello,” she says, but it sounds like _Fuck you._

It is Corona’s turn then to whirl and storm off. She hopes Judith watches her go. She hopes Judith is as aggravated by her presence as—as Corona _would be but definitely isn’t,_ because she has no skin, none at all, in this game. 

The game continues. Always when Corona sees her, Judith has her cavalier a half-step behind her. If she could just get her alone, Corona knows, Judith would cave in an instant. The problem is, Judith knows this too, and has Marta the Second practically attached to her hip. 

Until the dinner party. 

Corona can’t believe she didn’t think of it herself. A party is just the thing to lighten the monotony of Canaan House. Bad luck it’s for the Fifth’s anniversary; given twelve hours and some tulle Corona could rustle up something much more exciting, but as long as there’s a lot of wine on the table, she can work with it. 

She breathes a sigh of relief at the seating arrangement: the Second have been separated, and Judith is even close enough to rope into conversation. So Corona does what a princess of the Third does best. She sparkles, glitters, _glows._ She laughs at Magnus’s jokes, some of which are genuinely very funny, and listens with giddy interest to his anecdotes from the wedding day. She turns her attention on the people around her like a sunlamp, and, like the seasonally depressed moth she is, Judith can’t resist fluttering into her light. By the time the desserts have been cleared, the two of them are heavy with wine and have shared more than a couple of lingering glances. Marta the Second, for once, has wandered off, probably to the toilets. When Judith stands and excuses herself, Corona follows her. 

It is not until they’ve gotten two full hallways away from the dining room that Corona moves in. 

“Judith,” she calls after her, chiding. “Judith, this is ridiculous. Will you persist in unfriendliness forever? Can’t we talk?”

Without her cavalier there, it’s much easier to get Judith to stop and turn around. But when she does, the easy laughter of dinner has faded. There’s no coldness there, only resolve. “We have nothing to say to each other, Princess. You made yourself perfectly clear, the last time we spoke.”

_Spoke_ is generous. It had been a shouting match, barbed words on both sides, until Corona had said the thing that ended it all. And then—three years of silence. 

The thing is, though, there’d been wine at dinner. There’d been conversation. There’d been relaxing, and letting down of guards, and now, with the two of them alone in this hallway, there is a subtle, pounding sensation that anything might happen. The air thrums with possibility, like a heartbeat.

“It’s been three years,” Corona says, pitching her voice low and smooth. “Do my words still sting that badly?”

Judith’s face does not change. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Where did I hurt you?” Corona moves closer. Judith does not retreat. “Show me, so I can make it better.”

Judith does not reply, but her lips part, as though she wants to speak. There is a stray curl hanging over her shoulder, caught on one of her fancy little epaulets. Corona untangles it and returns it to its place, then runs her fingers down the bright red sleeve of the Cohort jacket. “Did I hurt your hand?” She squeezes Judith’s hand, the ends of her fingers cold in her palm, and then strokes the inside of her wrist. “Your wrist?” There’s a softening about the eyes that is the closest Judith has gotten to a smile in ten years. Corona moves up—and _in_ , running her fingers lightly, so lightly, over fabric gone blood red in her shadow. “Your elbow? Shoulder? Collarbone?” Judith could move away at any time. But she doesn’t. Corona catches her gaze. “Tell me.”

Judith’s eyes flutter shut. Corona’s fingers come to rest on the round gold buttons at the front, right over the sternum. 

“Oh, Captain,” she says, “did I hurt your heart?” 

She is even almost contrite about it. 

Judith opens her eyes. “I resolved that I wouldn’t speak to you until you apologized for what you said.”

“Then don’t speak to me,” Corona says, sliding a finger or two into the gap between buttons, pulling Judith closer. 

“Aren’t you sorry yet?”

“You are doing a very bad job of not speaking to me,” Corona murmurs. Their mouths are barely an inch away from touching. There’s a brief hitch of breath—and that’s all Corona needs to close the gap, to press a kiss to Judith’s lips, soft and sweet enough she forgets she’s angry. 

It works for a few seconds, at least until the kiss breaks and Judith says, “This qualifies as speaking, I think.”

“So _stop speaking._ ” And because Judith will not, apparently, put her mouth to a better purpose, Corona does it for her.

It’s like a dam breaking, three years of silence and frustration and distance. They’re grasping at each other, undoing buttons in the hunt for skin beneath, and it’s not enough, never enough; Corona backs her to the nearest wall and pins her to it. And there are gasps, from both of them, loud in the hush, and the little noises from the back of Judith’s throat that always embarrassed her, which are exactly why Corona got them two hallways away from the dining room instead of one. 

But right as Corona gets that Cohort jacket all the way open for a glorious grope of what’s underneath it, Judith stills. “Hey,” she whispers. Her thumbs stroke Corona’s cheeks, as though she can coax an apology out of them. “Just say you’re sorry.”

“Is that an order?” Corona winds a hand into the hair at the base of Judith’s head and tugs to expose her neck. 

“A request,” Judith says, though she shouldn’t even be able to _think_ with what Corona’s mouth and hands are doing. 

“I say a great many things to a great many people and can hardly even remember what I said to you, _Captain_ ,” Corona murmurs into warm skin.

Judith gets out an “Okay, _Princess_ ” in return, and it’s so galling, so condescending, to be reminded of their old arguments right then that Corona loses it a little, sinks her teeth into that muscle between Judith’s neck and shoulder, that place that’s always tense. The bite draws a moan from deep in Judith’s throat, but whether it’s one of pleasure or pain is impossible to tell. 

“If you’re going to pretend that you don’t know why what you said was awful and wrong,” Judith says, catching Corona by the chin and forcing her to look into her eyes, “then I certainly don’t need to continue this encounter any further.”

Kiss-flushed, skew-collared, and dappled in moonlight from the cracked roof, Judith is beautiful. It is not the first time, or place, or situation, in which Corona has noticed this, or wanted her for it. But it is the first time that she has noticed it, and wanted her, and turned away.

Corona steps back, leaving a rumpled Judith against the wall. “Stalemate, then.” She goes away with an artificial bounce in her step. 

She cannot tell Judith the truth: that she doesn’t know what it was that she said. And it is much too late to ask. Whatever it was, she’d probably meant it. 

She still isn’t remotely sorry.

  
  



End file.
